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Former US President Donald Trump has said he ignored his political consultants’ advice this week by criticizing trans athletes as part of a lengthy tirade in Washington DC.
Speaking at an America First Agenda Summit, Trump embarked on his diatribe by saying: “By the way, we should not allow men to play women’s sports. It’s so disrespectful to women,” which was met with hearty applause.
“[It’s just] so crazy,” Trump went on. “It just shows you what all of these political geniuses – I have all of these consultants, all these great, great – ‘Sir, don’t say that it’s very controversial,'” he trailed off.
“I just said it, thought it might be a good time,” Trump remarked, noting that his comment earned him his “biggest hand” of the whole evening.
In another widely-shared part of his appearance that has gone viral, Trump proposed that he would be “the greatest women’s basketball coach in history” if he could convince LA Lakers icon LeBron James to run out on court for him.
“I don’t like LeBron James – I like Michael Jordan much better,” Trump noted.
“But I’d go up to LeBron James … [and] I’d say, ‘LeBron, did you ever have any desire to be a woman?’ Because what I’d love you to do is star on my team that I’m building.”Â
“I will have the greatest team in history, they’ll never lose. Nobody will come within 70 points of this team,” Trump boasted.
Donald Trump says he would ask LeBron James If he has any desire to be a woman so he could star on his women's basketball team ?
— No Jumper (@nojumper) July 27, 2022
Trump is also said to have referred to New Zealand trans weightlifter Laurel Hubbard and UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, who previously competed on the Ivy League college’s men’s team but broke a series of records on its women’s team last season, without mentioning them directly.
At one point, Trump mocked trans weightlifters too by pretending that he was incapable of lifting any weights.